GDC: Curing caustic communities in Sins of a Dark Age

When I first started trying out League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, I was very quickly pushed away by their atrocious treatment of new players. Ironclad has stepped up to the plate in their new "commander and hero strategy game," Sins of a Dark Age. Instead of trying to punish antisocial behavior, they want to reward the good samaritins of the community.

For this SoaDA, Ironclad will have two separate queues for play. One will people who just want to jump right into the action with a bunch of random folks. The other will put players with on teams that are shorthanded in games that are already in progress. To incentivize this, they will be doling out massive in-game currency rewards, especially if that new player helps the team in a come-from-behind win.

I'm really looking forward to see how this works in-game. It would be nice to see someone bring an ounce of sanity to one of the most caustic communities around. Here's hoping they have finally put this problem to rest.

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